


Concussed

by tchaikfour



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tchaikfour/pseuds/tchaikfour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He never thought that in his life he'd think of someday making a speech that begins with 'Thank you, Sam, for walking into a tree.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concussed

**Author's Note:**

> No harm in saying that I don't own any of this except the storyline.

"I'm not the worst singer in the world, see."

Josh chuckles and pokes his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. "You might be," he admits. The night is edging closer, and spots of rosy light blind him every few seconds as buildings make way for the sunset. The sky is crazy with colour when he looks up, framed by the trees on either side of the road. He strides a little faster to catch the green walking signal up ahead.

From behind him, Sam huffs like he's never heard this before and says, "What about Toby?"

"Toby can carry a tune pretty well, actually," Josh calls, rolling his eyes as the signal turns red and cars start to move. Sam is still catching up, and he waits for a response for a few seconds before he hears a loud thwack.

He turns around to see Sam lying on the ground, rubbing his head. Leaves from the thick branch he just walked straight into flutter down to decorate the pavement, and a faint "Oh." comes from Sam's mouth before his head rolls to the side; Josh bites his lip hard to stop himself from laughing, and goes over to help.

***

"No cerebrospinal fluid visible. Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?"

Sam squints. "Three?"

"Very good." A nurse smooths his hair away from the graze on his forehead and he winces.

Tapping the edge of his seat impatiently, Josh leans forward and asks, "How far is it to the hospital, ma'am?"

"Only a couple of minutes. You did the right thing calling an ambulance." The nurse attending to Sam's head smiles at him, and he feels awkwardly like a kid in the principal's office confessing he knows who broke the school statue.

He nods and says, "Thanks." Sam taps his elbow and he looks down to the very miserable face of a man who has walked into a tree. The mental image is almost comical. Clearing his mind of the sight, he leans down and squeezes his hand in sympathy.

"I think my life actually flashed before my eyes there," Sam mumbles, and drops his head back to stare up at the roof of the ambulance. "Not all of it, just the parts since I started working for the President." Josh has to smile then, because Sam sounds adorably sleepy. They might not be in a place where he can kiss his forehead and put him to bed, but he keeps their hands connected until the nurse reaches out to take his pulse.

Sam grimaces up at him. "Why do _all_ the bananas have stilettos?" he groans, his gaze whirling around the van.

"I - " Josh's mouth drops open. The nurse says something about concussion to the paramedic sitting in the corner and his mild endearment turns into flat-out concern. He reaches out again and brushes Sam's fingers. Trying to remember what the effects of concussion are, he mentally swears not to laugh at his drugged-like state again.

It's a little hard to keep a straight face when Sam sighs and starts listing his favourite animals. Especially when the nurse keeps snickering.

***

The night has become what they have dubbed a Roosevelt Room situation; absolutely nothing is happening, but everyone's too bored to go home. Donna sits at the far end of the table, tapping a pen against the wood. Ainsley is devouring a muffin. Toby's off in his own universe writing a furiously fast summary of a set of useless amendments, and C.J. is starting to drift into a daydream when her cell phone rings.

Flicking the pen faster, Donna watches as C.J. answers the phone and then immediately frowns. "Oh my God, is he okay?" C.J. asks, her eyebrows rising above the edge of her fringe. Toby glances up. "You don't have to, you can just stay with him if you…Okay, I'll see you soon."

There's a faint mumbling from beside her ear before she adds, "How did he bump his head?" When the answer comes, the strangest expression appears on her face, like she's trying not to laugh. "Okay, bye," she says with her mouth struggling to keep its calm line.

"What happened?" asks Toby when she snaps the phone shut.

C.J. sets the phone down on the table and says, "That was Josh. He's at the hospital with Sam, who's got concussion and a graze on his head."

"Sam's in the hospital?" Ainsley brushes crumbs off her shirt and turns towards them, eyes full of sympathy. "How did he get concussion?"

"He." C.J. gives up trying not to laugh. "He walked into a tree," she says, struggling to keep the grin off her face and put on an expression of kind sympathy. It doesn’t work. Donna slaps a hand over her mouth and stifles giggles, Toby rolls his eyes, and Ainsley gives a small rueful smile.

"Josh said he's gonna stop by in a while with coffee, so do you guys wanna stay?" C.J. says eventually when all the laughter's left her.

Donna nods. "Yeah, of course. I'll go find something to do." Ainsley smiles and heads out to find another muffin, and Toby drops his pen and curses. If it wasn't a Roosevelt Room situation before, it is now.

***

"Yeah, Toby, because 'kiss my ass' is totally a nine-letter word for 'very badly'!"

When Josh finally arrives, they're arguing over one of Margaret's old crossword puzzles. He lingers outside the door with a faint smile of amusement as C.J. glares at Toby and erases what he's written.

"It is nine letters," Donna murmurs absent-mindedly.

He laughs and walks in, knocking on the door. "Hi, guys."

Glancing up at him, C.J. throws the paper down on the table and says, "Hey, how is he?" Ainsley puts down her (third) muffin and sits down beside her, flicking the back of Toby's head as punishment for the dumb suggestion. Donna drops the battered pen and goes to take the tray of coffee.

Josh scratches his head and leans against the doorframe, grinning. "He's gonna be fine. He can come and say hi before I have to take him home, and he's pretty much back to normal," he announces.

"That's great!" says C.J., thanking Donna as she hands around the takeaway cups. "And you're going back to the hospital now?"

He nods and says, "Yeah, I'll see you guys later." He walks out then, but after a few seconds slows down and backs up to the doorway. The others tilt their heads at him.

"Oh, by the way, something I thought of to mess with your heads a little," he adds with a wicked smile. "Someone was a little chatty in the ambulance. Turns out the only person in this room that hasn't kissed Sam is C.J." And with that he spins on his heels and exits, leaving behind him a room full of sudden awkwardness.

After a moment of bemused silence, Donna shoots a sideways glance at each of them and says slowly, "Okay. Who's gonna go first?"

C.J. shrugs. "I get to pick. I'm the odd one out here." She lifts her chin and says, "Donna, what about you?"

"It was…let me think. Okay, it was when he was really worried about a speech during the campaign," she declares. Toby gazes at her with mild interest, and Ainsley looks spellbound. She smiles at them nervously. "It was about two in the morning and he was still working on a draft, and I told him something clichéd about good work taking time and him being brilliant enough to get through it, and he just stood up and looked at me like I was a saint."

"Was it a saintly kiss?" C.J. teases.

She nods emphatically. "He was very courteous. I mean, it's Sam," she chuckles. "It was more of a 'because you said that I'm so happy I could kiss you' kind of moment. He might have apologised afterwards, come to think of it."

C.J. drops her head and grins. "Was it a _good_ kiss?"

"Oh, it was wonderful," Donna assures her. The memory seems more charming now that she knows she's not alone. She turns to Ainsley and prompts, "What about you?"

Sighing, Ainsley picks up her muffin and tears off a long, thin curl of the wax paper. "Well, it's the furthest thing from ladylike to be telling you this, but the time I kissed Sam he sort of had it coming."

"You kissed him?" C.J. says, incredulous. She kicks off her pumps and draws her feet up to rest her elbows on her knees, an impromptu interviewer.

Ainsley rolls her eyes. "It was kind of a mutual decision. It was a pretty hot night, and we had been arguing for maybe an hour about…" She trails off before waving her hands and saying dismissively, "Oh, I can't remember. Probably one of our many ideological conflicts." Toby snickers, and she glares at him.

"Anyway, we ended up at my office after a long walk spent growling at each other…and I just snapped, I guess. We kissed, and once he'd stopped gaping at me afterwards he found another problem with my argument and we went on like it never happened."

"That sounds like Sam," Donna says, thoughtful. 

The silence in the room is embarrassingly filled with the collective mental image, and upon the decision that none of the others should be finding it that transfixing Ainsley blinks and says, "Anyway, that was my story."

Everyone's quiet for a few seconds in which Toby counts his blessings before C.J. beams at him and says, "And you, Toby?"

He grimaces. "Terrible."

"Really?" says Donna, perking up at the contrast. He suddenly wishes he were anywhere but here, or that Josh had never mentioned the kiss thing, or that Sam had never walked into a damn tree in the first place.

"He was drunk," he answers flatly, and this seems to be enough to appease them. Ainsley twists her bottom lip with uncomfortable sympathy and takes a huge bite of her muffin. Resigning to give them a little more, he sets his coffee down on the table and adds, "It was when the President won the election. He was really proud of what we'd done. I guess he thought it was the right way to show his appreciation."

C.J. giggles. "I can't believe he kissed you."

"I can't believe I didn't immediately smack him around the head and tell him to go take it out on someone else," he says wearily. "Now. The crossword?"

She turns her nose up at him. "Don't even think about it, buster," she retorts, flapping the newspaper back against her sweater. He returns to his writing with a ghost of a smirk on his face. Donna smiles at Ainsley, who's feeling more awkward by the second. It's probably, hands down, the most interesting Roosevelt Room situation they've ever had.

***

As soon as Sam stumbles through the door, Donna starts up a round of applause. C.J. grins at him and he wonders why, until she says something about kissing and he remembers that Josh said he was going to tell them. A wave of nervousness attacks his knees at the thought, and he sways on his feet before Josh comes up behind him and takes hold of his arms.

Josh smiles at them. "Here he is, in all his glory. How did my little side note pan out?"

C.J. huffs and replies, "Well, you managed to create the most awkwardness this room has ever held, not to mention a whole new level of grumpy on Toby's behalf."

"Nice. And is the nine-letter word for 'very badly' maybe 'abysmally'?"

Ainsley spins on her heels to face him, cocking her head. "I'm interested, Josh. You were in the room too, as I recall. When did you kiss Sam?"

 _There it is,_ he thinks. "That's right," Donna says softly. "You were including yourself too, weren't you?"

He can't stop the big smile that makes its way onto his face. Sam takes his hand behind his back, and after a deep breath he scratches his head and says, "Yeah, Donna, I was." Glancing at Sam, who hesitates for a second before giving him a sleepy nod, he turns to face the others. "I'd give you a definite answer, but to be honest I've kind of lost count," he admits.

Toby's eyes nearly pop out of their sockets when he curves an arm around Sam's waist. "I'm - I'm sorry. You've lost count?"

 "Yeah, sorry about that. About three times today, if you wanted a specific example." C.J.'s face is priceless. He continues, shifting his stance to accommodate for the hand settling on his shoulder: "I guess the first time was around 1983, wouldn't you say?" Sam nods encouragingly. "And then there was the long-distance thing so we broke up for a while and then there was Lisa and Mandy…and after the campaign started again, I'd say the last time was just now in the hospital once the nurses weren't looking."

The others' faces have joined C.J.'s in the realm of the unforgettable. Josh shrugs and says, "It's the strangest thing, isn't it? But come on, guys. How is it possible to look at this guy - talk to this guy, even know this guy - and not fall in love with him?" The kiss he gets for that is drowsy and unnecessarily wholesome, but it's exactly what he needs to make his point.

As Donna's jaw drops further towards the carpet, the shocked questions start coming at them from every direction. He never thought that in his life he'd think of someday making a speech that begins with _Thank you, Sam, for walking into a tree_. But it's over now. They know. The next tier up is telling Leo and the President, and for a second he wonders if there are any more inanimate objects Sam can walk into. He blinks and returns to happily listening to the interrogation.

It's a good thing he bought bagels and a puzzle magazine on their way there, or this would go on forever.

 


End file.
